Month: August 2012

Northampton in the Eighties The Beginning Heritage Bank was our regional bank, and while the boom-time of the nineteen eighties lasted, it was the financial center of our town. If you couldn’t get a loan elsewhere, you came to Heritage Bank. They came from Providence and Maine, from Ohio and Miami Beach. The Plotters One … Continue reading Travels inside a Bank Failure

Beardsleys restaurant today I called Danny Constance in 1999, but he didn’t want to talk to me. “Do you want to talk about the 80s, Danny?” I asked, and there was a long pause. He was thinking about it. “No,” he finally said in this gravelly voice, “I don’t think I do.” He was polite, … Continue reading Looking for Danny Constance

Runoff problem “potentially fatal” to Three County Fair Expansion Plan (In the interests of full disclosure, the author signed on as a complainant in the Massachusetts Land court lawsuit Tymosko versus the Three County Fair and its subsidiary, Three County Redevelopment.) This morning it was raining, and on an impulse I drove down to the … Continue reading Runoff problem

Looking at the pile of rubble that the big crawler had turned the old Sacred Heart rectory into yesterday, you had to admire the efficiency of the way things are done these days. One man, a couple days, a big machine that can grab onto an edge of building and twist it like taffy. (note … Continue reading One down, more to come